UC Irvine Swimming and Diving Invitational : USC Men, Women Easily Beat the Field

The USC men’s and women’s swim teams finished first in the UC Irvine Invitational Sunday at Irvine’s Heritage Park.

They both achieved similar results, but took different approaches in doing so.

The Trojan women scored all their points Saturday and did not compete in Sunday’s six events. USC’s women performed so well Saturday that Coach Don LaMont gave his team Sunday off.

The Trojan women finished first with 714 points, 263 points ahead of the second-place Nova Aquatics club team of Irvine (451). Cal State Long Beach was third (418.5), Cal State Northridge fourth (283) and the University of the Pacific fifth (254.9). UC Irvine’s women finished eighth (183).

The Trojan men competed both days and won with 738 points. Hawaii was second at 511 and was followed by Long Beach (267), Northridge (250), Irvine (249), University of the Pacific (169), Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (144), Nova Aquatics (118), Cal State Los Angeles (110) and Clovis (102).

Although it wasn’t much of a surprise that the Trojan men won, USC Coach Peter Daland was surprised to see Chris Hansen finish second in the 1,650-yard freestyle, with a time of 15:20.

Hansen’s time qualified him for the NCAA finals in May. USC freshman Dan Jorgensen, who won the race with a time of 15:18, qualified for the NCAA’s earlier in the season.

“It’s great that he made it now,” Daland said. “Because he won’t have to shave down in the conference finals.”

Daland was referring to his swimmers’ practice of removing all of their body hair to increase speed in the water. Most swimmers shave only once a season, Daland said, and they prefer to do it just before the NCAAs.

“If you do it more than once, you usually peak too early,” Hansen said.

USC won three of the five men’s events it competed in Sunday and swept the 1,650 freestyle as Jorgensen, Hansen and Chris Chalmers finished in the top three.

In addition to his victory in the 1,650 freestyle, Jorgensen, a former Mission Viejo High School swimmer, won the 200-yard backstroke by nearly four seconds with a time of 1:53.38.

UC Irvine saved its best results for the last race as its 400-yard freestyle relay team of Mauro Macchi, Wes Toller, Brian Judd and Kurt Fuchs won in 3:10.93. Hawaii finished second in 3:11.68.

Irvine’s Brian Pajer had the Anteaters’ highest individual finish for the second straight day, finishing third in the 200-yard breaststroke.

In the men’s three-meter diving, Chinese Olympian Li Hong Ping finished first with 577.20 points. Scott Fosdick of UCLA finished second (553.30). Ping, who completed his eligibility at USC last year, is now a member of the Irvine Diver’s club team.